Cheer up! If we work really, really hard, we WILL take the Senate and keep the House this year.

On February 19, Zach Taylor, former border control agent, and current National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, will speak at Palo Verde Republican Women’s February meeting. Via email, he sent these comments along to one of our members. Considering what some in the Republican party are attempting to do about illegal immigration, we thought we should share:

“Keep the stories of border insecurity and criminals coming. The sell-outs hate those pesky little details.

The purpose of the Immigration Laws are to ensure National Security and Public Safety, not to provide a pathway to citizenship to those who break them. We need to put America and Americans first.”

Illegal Immigration

You won’t hear this reported in the MSM. “The officers who would be charged with approving millions of applications from illegal immigrants for legal status warned Congress this week that they can’t handle the workload, and said the change would guarantee criminals and others would be approved to remain in the country.” Immigration officials warn of amnesty ‘overload’

Common sense. “Lee’s point is that House Republicans should not pass a group of bills all at once dealing with all the parts of a comprehensive immigration reform solution, then label such a legislative package as “piecemeal” or “step-by-step.” Instead, Lee argues that real step-by-step or piecemeal immigration reform is when the House moves to secure the border and forces the Democrat-controlled Senate and President Barack Obama’s administration to pass and implement actual border security and interior enforcement measures.” Mike Lee: Secure the Border Before Dealing with Illegal Aliens in America

Arizona Elections

Andrew Walter, Republican candidate for congress in AZ CD9 on the state of our union. “The answer to this misery is economic freedom. I’ll let Sinema defend ObamaCare, while I defend the families who’ve lost coverage and medical care. I’ll let her talk about minimum wage, while I fight for maximum employment. I’ll let her defend dangerous government spending, while I defend our children’s future and opportunities. Economic freedom recognizes the dignity and value unique to each human being. Economic freedom empowers individuals to develop their unique God-given skills through work and opportunity. The politics of dependency championed by Rep. Sinema, and those like her, is destructive. Let them talk about a handout, while we talk about a hand-up. Let them talk about dependency, while we talk about empowerment.” Andrew Walter’s Response to President Obama’s State of the Union

“’I think that one of the patterns that we’ve seen is that slowly but surely his popularity with Democrats has waned, and then with independents, and now it has waned with Republicans,” de Berge said. “When you get that dynamic in all three of the major parties, that begins to have an effect that’s kind of hard to reverse.’” New poll shows McCain support in Arizona dropping

National Elections

Good riddance. “An interesting footnote on Waxman: His district became more conservative after the lines were redrawn as part of the 2010 redistricting. Evidently California’s Democratic legislature decided to stick him with a few more Republican voters on the assumption that, as a state institution and perennial winner, he could handle it with no sweat. It didn’t play out that way in 2012. He won by just eight points over an independent, a scent of blood in the water that attracted newbie candidates this year. A guy who’s spent his 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and half of his 70s winning elections isn’t going to risk leaving Congress by being ignominiously hauled out by voters, a fate that his California colleague Pete Stark — who also served 40 years in the House — suffered in 2012. You can’t fire Henry. He quits.” Abandon ship: Henry Waxman to retire

Voice of reason. “Cutting the retirement pay of career military and pushing doomed immigration bills that lack even the most basic of gestures to the base is exactly what comes from an isolated, Beltway-centric House GOP leadership. If as is rumored, Congressman Jeb Hensarling and/or Congressman Tom Price challenge the established order for leadership in the next Congress at the organizing meeting of the incoming Congress in November after the elections, the events of the past three weeks will guide many votes.” Memo To House GOP: Stop Threatening Chances Of A Senate GOP Majority In 2016

Not sure how this will go IF the Republicans help the Democrats to slam through an amnesty program. “A Gallup Poll in late January showed that more and more states are becoming Republican. Gallup tells us that 14 of the 50 states have a clear majority of respondents calling themselves “Republicans,” and 17 of the 50 states have a clear majority of respondents calling themselves “Democrats.” This, however, dramatically understates the growing Republican advantage in many states. The following 14 states are presented by Gallup as neither Democrat nor Republican: Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio. Election results, however, suggest a strong Republican trend.” More States Are Quietly Becoming Republican

Maybe this is the reason for a “quiet Republican revolution” as the article above indicates. “In the country, the president’s popularity is underwater. In the District of Columbia itself, as Gallup notes, it’s at 81%. The Washington area is now the wealthiest in the nation. No matter how bad the hinterlands do, it’s good for government and those who live off it. The country is well aware. It is no accident that in the national imagination Washington is the shallow and corrupt capital in “The Hunger Games,” the celebrity-clogged White House Correspondents’ Dinner, “Scandal” and the green room at MSNBC. It is the chattering capital of a nation it less represents than dominates.” Noonan: Meanwhile, Back in America . . .

“This administration’s partisan use of prosecutorial discretion to harass conservatives and Republicans more generally is one of the great scandals of our time. But, to be fair to the Obama administration, so is the partisan bias of the mainstream press. This makes it noteworthy that Alan Dershowitz, who is most emphatically not a conservative Republican, has weighed in on the question of Dinesh’s indictment, saying, “’This is clearly a case of selective prosecution for one of the most common things done during elections, which is to get people to raise money for you. If they went after everyone who did this, there would be no room in jails for murderers.’” Alan Dershowitz Rises to the Defense of Dinesh D’Souza

Republican Messaging

Good advice! “A test case for this kind of policy-oriented political strategy is the governor’s race in Texas: Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate, has a complicated personal history. Stop talking about it. (Her capacity for veracity is a legitimate issue, but for God’s sake why go into her parenting choices? That’s a snare and a distraction.) Talk policy — specifically, the issue that brought Davis to national prominence. What was her 11-hour filibuster about? Blocking a state law whose major feature was outlawing abortions beyond 20 weeks. Make that the battlefield. Make Davis explain why she chose not just to support late-term abortion but to make it her great cause. Stay away from the minefield of gender politics. Challenge the other side on substance. And watch them lose.” How to debunk the ‘war on women’

The Economy

“The most accurate measure of inflation the federal government uses – the PCE deflator, which the CBO and the Federal Reserve use because of its greater accuracy – shows the 1981 minimum wage would be worth $7.47 an hour in today’s dollars. In other words, the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has changed little over the past generation. And the president’s proposed hike would raise the minimum wage to a historically unprecedented level. Liberals and conservatives can debate the wisdom of doing this in a weak economy, but both sides should understand that that’s what’s being proposed.” The Minimum Wage: Facts vs. Fiction

“The reason we haven’t seen the spurt has been a series of policy sucker punches: a debt up $6 trillion in five years, a 2013 tax increase on investors and business profits from the increase in personal income-tax rates, ObamaCare business mandates that cap employment, the Dodd-Frank bill that has paralyzed bank lending, welfare expansions that discourage work and environmental regulations on oil, gas and coal output that prevent an even more robust energy boom. And then, of course, we have a $3 trillion Fed balance sheet that has Wall Street and Main Street engaged in a guessing game of what central bankers will do next. To keep growth above 3%, we must remove these impediments to business expansion. We also need to get Americans working again. The jobs problem is both a supply and demand problem. Businesses are reluctant to hire because of mandates like ObamaCare. But just as important, the massive exodus of adults from the labor force — fewer than six of 10 working-age Americans now hold a job — has put a ceiling on GDP growth.” Raw Deal: Obamanomics Has Cost The Economy $1.3 Trillion

Foreign Policy

Chaos. “There will be differences. The world in 2017 will be more dangerous than the world in 2001. It will be more dangerous because in addition to safe havens in Afghanistan and Sudan, al Qaeda will have established outposts, or will govern actual territory, in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Mali, Libya, Sinai, and Algeria. It will be more dangerous because Iran will be capable of building a nuclear weapon, and Saudi Arabia and Jordan likely will have started nuclear programs of their own. It will be more dangerous because a heavily armed China and Japan will be at each other’s throats. It will be a world where American power is challenged on every front, a world resembling, even more than it does already, pre-World War I Europe, where declining empires and terrorism and ethno-religious conflict inaugurated the greatest man-made disaster in recorded history. It will be a world much like today’s, a world where America is mocked, despised, flouted, subverted, challenged, chastened, and threatened, and our only response is to say that we are so very, very concerned.” The Big Chide: What will the world look like in 2017?

Obamacare

“What happens when employees at a small business find out the costs of their new insurance options under ObamaCare? WTAE in Pittsburgh dropped in on Simonetta’s Collision and Car Care in McKeesport, where the new pricing and deductibles are being rolled out as their cameras record the reaction. Without exception, everyone ends up enduring the bitter irony in the name of the Affordable Care Act (via Daniel Halper at TWS).” Video: People discover just how “affordable” the Affordable Care Act is

“First, the plans are far too expensive, thanks to ObamaCare’s regulations, taxes, and benefit mandates. And the subsidies phase out quickly enough that many lower-middle class families will still find they can’t or don’t want to pay the costs. Second, it won’t take long for those currently uninsured to realize that they are better off putting off the purchase, since ObamaCare guarantees they can get coverage after they get sick, and at subsidized rates.” Why Do The Uninsured Hate ObamaCare?

You didn’t build that. “’The cost to get (a new treatment) approved is significantly higher from a regulatory point of view,” he said. “And if you invest the time and the money and take the risk, if there’s a precarious reimbursement setting, the whole equation is in jeopardy. Innovation is in jeopardy.’” Drug companies warn innovation could suffer under Obamacare

The Left

“All presidents have, at one time or another, fudged on the truth. Most politicians pad their résumés and airbrush away their sins. But what is new about political lying is the present notion that lies are not necessarily lies anymore — a reflection of the relativism that infects our entire culture.” The Poison of Postmodern Lying

It doesn’t have to be this way America. “Socialism. Humanity’s most tragic experiment. For all its varying faces — from the totalitarianism of North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela to the social democracies of Europe — the truth shows forth in absolute clarity. Earlier this week, we learned that in 2013, foreign investment in France declined by 77 percent. That’s 77 percent.” Socialism’s Sad Estate

Speaking from experience. “Ultimately, welfare states actually don’t help people in need. Instead, they perpetuate empty, short-term remedies for social problems that require far deeper attention. In establishing a governing premise that removes consequential risk from calculations of conduct, welfare states weaken the incentives for initiative and sacrifice the social benefits that are born of personal responsibility. And welfare states represent the epitome of crony capitalism — they exchange redistributive patronage for political power. In contrast to some of my fellow conservatives, when it comes to welfare states, I actually know what I’m talking about. I spent 24 of my 26 years living in a welfare state: The U.K.” Welfare states are unfair states

With the election fading further into our rear view mirrors, let's have some fun!

At our December Christmas luncheon, we are thrilled to be able to present to you the talented A Capella Syndicate, the Phoenix Area's newest musical sound.

The group is a singing brotherhood that promotes harmony in our community through performances and outreach. They've recently joined the Barbershop Harmony Society, the world's largest men's singing organization and are the 2016 Far Western Arizona Division champions.

Bring your friends and family!

We promise you will get goose bumps as they sing to us all of our holiday favorites! We hope to see you there!